The problem with Trump is the same thing it's been for the last seven years: his Republican enablers. They won't have this necessary talk. The Rick Scott display was just embarrassing, humiliating, and predictable.
The GOP at this point is so used to this routine that they're numb to it. It's a reflex, and they couldn't stop it if the…
The problem with Trump is the same thing it's been for the last seven years: his Republican enablers. They won't have this necessary talk. The Rick Scott display was just embarrassing, humiliating, and predictable.
The GOP at this point is so used to this routine that they're numb to it. It's a reflex, and they couldn't stop it if they sprouted a conscience and tried at this point. It's just reality for them, now. They missed their chance with the Second Impeachment; I believe they really thought there was no way he could come back from what happened that day, and so they wouldn't have to make the politically tough play to convict, thereby pissing off the base but nonetheless excising the cancer. Now they're stuck with Trump, and he's going down, and he's going to take the Republican Party down with him.
I agree with you. But that's exactly why the rest of us need to put the issue front and center in front of everyone else. We cannot trust the GOP to do so, thus it falls to the rest of us to do the right thing and wage whatever campaign it takes to convince everybody else that a mentally deranged Trump is simply too risky and too dangerous to entrust any longer with any real power. The message should be blunt and forceful. It should ask America directly: are you willing to allow an unstable person to have virtually unlimited control over your life, our nation, and the world? With access to the nuclear codes? With the support of the military? Make it a full-on wedge issue with the entire population and push the Trumpists into a position where they have to defend the indefensible, in public, on the record, and accept whatever consequences there may be. We cannot allow them to seize the higher ground because we were too passive or scared to try to hold it.
Republican don’t give a flying fart for any kind of consequences. It’s all live-in-the-moment theatre. Heck, it’s in their holy text - “Take ye therefore no thought for tomorrow” and being literalists, they don’t. And if you can’t reach them, and you can’t, who is there left to convince?
I think you're right, but I also know that even beginning to mention Trump's "man, woman, camera, person, TV" problem will cause a mob to descend on me with a million "Senile Sleepy Joe sniffs hair" comments. Any mention of Trump's cognitive decline is fought tooth and nail, very viciously. On social media, it feels a bit like this is the third rail. You can call Trump corrupt, a draft dodger, a sexual assaulter, and a tax criminal, and MAGA will let it go, but if you dare to call him senile, the troops howl. As a woman, I'm not sure I'd be safe online talking about this.
I wonder why that is. Possibly because with all the other stuff it is word against word and possibly 'fake news'. With cognitive decline the evidence is there for all of us to evaluate personally. So if you call him a draft-dodger they know that that's just fake news made up by the liberal media. But if you point out that he's not all there, they're on the hook for not seeing it. And much like the emperor and his lack of wardrobe, it is pretty damn apparent no matter how much someone want to ignore it.
As for sleepy Joe, it would certainly seem that the republicans of today and their what-aboutism have completely given up on the concept of two wrongs not making a right. Beyond that, I'd have to ask, is the Republican bench so void of quality candidates that the cognitively impaired candidate is still their best chance against another cognitively impaired candidate?
All that said, I don't think Biden's anywhere near as impaired as Trump, but I can see the issue being a potential struggle against a younger (not Trump) candidate.
The voters are definitely the biggest issue. Representatives who are worried about more than reelection, though, would leave the country better positioned.
And the problem behind that is that the GOP has chased that fraction so far that they have nothing left when it comes to policies to actually solve the problems our country faces. It is grievance all the way down for a party more concerned with bathrooms and publicity stunts than in actually dealing with issues.
The original sin with respect to Trump came early on in the 2016 campaign. The entire field of Republican candidates should have pledged to oppose Trump should he win the nomination. But they feared Trump would mount a third party run if they effectively kicked him out of the party. Thus party was put before country, and we've been paying for this betrayal ever since.
That's tempting but anti-democratic in its own way. What makes all of this so intractable is that a critical mass of voters WANT this stuff. They hate D's so much that they're willing to change their form of government, and toss out the American experiment, to punish and deny them power.
I don't know. Not much different than what ranked choice voting may well have done. Which is basically adding in the factor of voting against who you hate.
Also, the concept of something being more anti-democratic than a primary system coupled with our first past the post and electoral college system calcifying two (and only two) parties as the only realistic choices...well, it is certainly possible, but I'm not sure candidates using their free speech to declare someone unacceptable passes the bar automatically.
Well, maybe we're not screwed. I mean, no one wants to risk having Trump run again, but if you had a 100% guarantee that he'd lose (even after state level hijinks) I think we'd have to take it. And I have to think he is just about their worst chance of winning. Massive anti-trump vote baked in that no one else on the GOP side will have.
So as bad as Trump getting the nomination would be, and as much as no one wants to risk what that could entail (unrest, him winning, etc.), there are a lot of scenarios where things still workout better than a DeSantis getting the nomination. In short: Trump Losing > DeSantis winning.
Thank you! I’ve been trying hard to understand why people think Trump as the candidate in 2024 would be worse than DSantis as the Republican candidate. DeSantis is just as racist, homophobic, vengeful and authoritarian but since he’s more competent and tactful than Trump, he’s capable of enacting really harmful policies.
Would he threaten violence against his opponents if he didn’t get his way? No. But let’s not forget that TRUMP *lost* in 2020 and that was *before* he incited a violent insurrection, stole and refused to return sensitive classified documents that threatened our national security, endorsed bat-shit crazy election deniers and riled up his fan base to threaten and attack poll workers, FBI agents, and other “perceived political enemies” - including his own Vice President and The Senate Minority Leader! If there’s any way that these actions would result in *more* people voting for him…If people actually believe that there are enough people who would vote to have Trump serve another term as President, then it doesn’t actually matter if he’s the candidate or not because that possibility alone would mean that the country is probably beyond the point that it can be saved.
That scenario of Trump Losing > DeSantis Winning just postpones the DeSantis problem. DeSantis and other Trumpy Orbanites are still out there, as is the Trump base. I don't see any with Trump's idiot savant charisma, tho.
Postponing it may be the best we can get for a bit. 4 more years of a democratic president with all that that gets, as well as another rebuke to trumpism isn't without value. Sure, DeSantis might run in 28, and might well win, but maybe we'll have had some softening by them. Maybe some demographics will have further changed by then. As the old joke goes, maybe the horse will learn to sing.
The problem with Trump is the same thing it's been for the last seven years: his Republican enablers. They won't have this necessary talk. The Rick Scott display was just embarrassing, humiliating, and predictable.
The GOP at this point is so used to this routine that they're numb to it. It's a reflex, and they couldn't stop it if they sprouted a conscience and tried at this point. It's just reality for them, now. They missed their chance with the Second Impeachment; I believe they really thought there was no way he could come back from what happened that day, and so they wouldn't have to make the politically tough play to convict, thereby pissing off the base but nonetheless excising the cancer. Now they're stuck with Trump, and he's going down, and he's going to take the Republican Party down with him.
I agree with you. But that's exactly why the rest of us need to put the issue front and center in front of everyone else. We cannot trust the GOP to do so, thus it falls to the rest of us to do the right thing and wage whatever campaign it takes to convince everybody else that a mentally deranged Trump is simply too risky and too dangerous to entrust any longer with any real power. The message should be blunt and forceful. It should ask America directly: are you willing to allow an unstable person to have virtually unlimited control over your life, our nation, and the world? With access to the nuclear codes? With the support of the military? Make it a full-on wedge issue with the entire population and push the Trumpists into a position where they have to defend the indefensible, in public, on the record, and accept whatever consequences there may be. We cannot allow them to seize the higher ground because we were too passive or scared to try to hold it.
Republican don’t give a flying fart for any kind of consequences. It’s all live-in-the-moment theatre. Heck, it’s in their holy text - “Take ye therefore no thought for tomorrow” and being literalists, they don’t. And if you can’t reach them, and you can’t, who is there left to convince?
I think you're right, but I also know that even beginning to mention Trump's "man, woman, camera, person, TV" problem will cause a mob to descend on me with a million "Senile Sleepy Joe sniffs hair" comments. Any mention of Trump's cognitive decline is fought tooth and nail, very viciously. On social media, it feels a bit like this is the third rail. You can call Trump corrupt, a draft dodger, a sexual assaulter, and a tax criminal, and MAGA will let it go, but if you dare to call him senile, the troops howl. As a woman, I'm not sure I'd be safe online talking about this.
I wonder why that is. Possibly because with all the other stuff it is word against word and possibly 'fake news'. With cognitive decline the evidence is there for all of us to evaluate personally. So if you call him a draft-dodger they know that that's just fake news made up by the liberal media. But if you point out that he's not all there, they're on the hook for not seeing it. And much like the emperor and his lack of wardrobe, it is pretty damn apparent no matter how much someone want to ignore it.
As for sleepy Joe, it would certainly seem that the republicans of today and their what-aboutism have completely given up on the concept of two wrongs not making a right. Beyond that, I'd have to ask, is the Republican bench so void of quality candidates that the cognitively impaired candidate is still their best chance against another cognitively impaired candidate?
All that said, I don't think Biden's anywhere near as impaired as Trump, but I can see the issue being a potential struggle against a younger (not Trump) candidate.
The bigger problem is that GOP voters reward the GOP for cheering on Trump. A large fraction of the country wants this exact leadership.
The voters are definitely the biggest issue. Representatives who are worried about more than reelection, though, would leave the country better positioned.
And the problem behind that is that the GOP has chased that fraction so far that they have nothing left when it comes to policies to actually solve the problems our country faces. It is grievance all the way down for a party more concerned with bathrooms and publicity stunts than in actually dealing with issues.
Stupidity snarled like a junkyard dog, and the masses loved the show.
The original sin with respect to Trump came early on in the 2016 campaign. The entire field of Republican candidates should have pledged to oppose Trump should he win the nomination. But they feared Trump would mount a third party run if they effectively kicked him out of the party. Thus party was put before country, and we've been paying for this betrayal ever since.
That's tempting but anti-democratic in its own way. What makes all of this so intractable is that a critical mass of voters WANT this stuff. They hate D's so much that they're willing to change their form of government, and toss out the American experiment, to punish and deny them power.
It certainly isn't democratic to destroy democracy, even if you use the machinery of democracy to do it.
I don't know. Not much different than what ranked choice voting may well have done. Which is basically adding in the factor of voting against who you hate.
Also, the concept of something being more anti-democratic than a primary system coupled with our first past the post and electoral college system calcifying two (and only two) parties as the only realistic choices...well, it is certainly possible, but I'm not sure candidates using their free speech to declare someone unacceptable passes the bar automatically.
And they'll run into the same third party issue in 2024, which is why they're so screwed. And why we're all screwed.
Well, maybe we're not screwed. I mean, no one wants to risk having Trump run again, but if you had a 100% guarantee that he'd lose (even after state level hijinks) I think we'd have to take it. And I have to think he is just about their worst chance of winning. Massive anti-trump vote baked in that no one else on the GOP side will have.
So as bad as Trump getting the nomination would be, and as much as no one wants to risk what that could entail (unrest, him winning, etc.), there are a lot of scenarios where things still workout better than a DeSantis getting the nomination. In short: Trump Losing > DeSantis winning.
Thank you! I’ve been trying hard to understand why people think Trump as the candidate in 2024 would be worse than DSantis as the Republican candidate. DeSantis is just as racist, homophobic, vengeful and authoritarian but since he’s more competent and tactful than Trump, he’s capable of enacting really harmful policies.
Would he threaten violence against his opponents if he didn’t get his way? No. But let’s not forget that TRUMP *lost* in 2020 and that was *before* he incited a violent insurrection, stole and refused to return sensitive classified documents that threatened our national security, endorsed bat-shit crazy election deniers and riled up his fan base to threaten and attack poll workers, FBI agents, and other “perceived political enemies” - including his own Vice President and The Senate Minority Leader! If there’s any way that these actions would result in *more* people voting for him…If people actually believe that there are enough people who would vote to have Trump serve another term as President, then it doesn’t actually matter if he’s the candidate or not because that possibility alone would mean that the country is probably beyond the point that it can be saved.
That scenario of Trump Losing > DeSantis Winning just postpones the DeSantis problem. DeSantis and other Trumpy Orbanites are still out there, as is the Trump base. I don't see any with Trump's idiot savant charisma, tho.
Postponing it may be the best we can get for a bit. 4 more years of a democratic president with all that that gets, as well as another rebuke to trumpism isn't without value. Sure, DeSantis might run in 28, and might well win, but maybe we'll have had some softening by them. Maybe some demographics will have further changed by then. As the old joke goes, maybe the horse will learn to sing.